What does this research mean for the field?

Housing unaffordability in Europe is acutely concentrated in capital regions, major urban centers, and tourism-intensive areas, driven by a combination of high property prices and insufficient local income levels. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To evaluate and map housing affordability for both homeownership and private renting across local administrative units throughout Europe.

September 5, 2026Journal of MapsOpen Access

Where can you still afford to live? – a comparative perspective on European housing affordability

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

FSFranziska SielkerInstitute of Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia SBSelim BanabakInstitute for Urban and Regional Research

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Spatial analysis reveals severe housing unaffordability across major urban, coastal, and alpine regions in 31 European countries, highlighting an escalating regional affordability crisis.

Key Points

To evaluate and map housing affordability for both homeownership and private renting across local administrative units throughout Europe.
Gathered over 22 million property listings through large-scale web scraping across local administrative units in 31 European countries.
Combined listing data with spatially disaggregated equivalized income figures to calculate the floor area affordable on average regional incomes.
Employed a spline-based modeling approach to account for non-linear relationships between property floor area and market price.
Pronounced unaffordability hotspots cluster in capital regions, major urban centers, coastal zones, and tourism-heavy alpine regions despite higher average urban incomes.
Rural regions exhibit substantial supply shortages in private rental markets alongside widespread affordability constraints in countries with lower national income baselines.
Population-weighted analyses reveal an amplified affordability crisis concentrated heavily in the most densely populated European regions.

Cite This Study

Sielker et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9bd3c76b95aff0620eae70 https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2026.2695777

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Implication

Spatial analysis reveals severe housing unaffordability across major urban, coastal, and alpine regions in 31 European countries, highlighting an escalating regional affordability crisis.

Where can you still afford to live? – a comparative perspective on European housing affordability

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Where can you still afford to live? – a comparative perspective on European housing affordability

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Also Consider

Also Consider